BIOTECHNOLOGY: PRACTICE HAS A LONG HISTORY IN FOOD PROUDUCTION

MCCLURE, Ill. -- Farming keeps changing, and after 35 years in the fields, Bill Colyer knows when it's time to adapt again.

The last time was five years ago, when Colyer switched from planting conventional soybean crops to genetically engineered seeds. Now, after cutting his costs and improving his yields, there's no going back from biotechnology in agriculture.

"It's the best thing since water," Colyer said.

Biotech farming isn't as new as it might seem, said Gerald Bryan, an agronomist with the Missouri extension service. Mixing varieties of seeds or animals to create different characteristics is a long-established practice.

"In a liberal use of the term, farmers have been using genetic engineering for centuries," Bryan said. "Mules are a genetically engineered animal."

More recently, scientists have found ways to inject specific genes into seeds to achieve desired effects, Bryan said. The practice has been carried out in corn, cotton and other crops, allowing the growing seeds to make their own insecticide called bacillus therogensis, or more commonly, "caterpillar killer," he said.

"Essentially, it's a bacteria," Bryan said. "When worms eat it or get on it, it kills them."

For farmers, this has been an incredible benefit. The need for spraying crops with insecticides is cut by 60 percent, Bryan said.

For farmers like Colyer, the result is money saved. Since he started planting genetically engineered crops five years ago, he has cut costs for insecticides and labor while increasing yields. He was able to sell three of his five tractors because spraying fertilizer and tilling the soil became unnecessary.

But the idea of a food crop like corn creating internal insecticides starts questions about the safety of biotech crops. A recent mix-up involving corn intended as livestock feed being used for Taco Bell brand taco shells sold in grocery stores underscored these fears. The shells were pulled from grocery shelves.

Biotech foods were in the limelight last month due to a federal judge's dismissal of a lawsuit by critics of agricultural biotechnology. The lawsuit asked the government to require labels on foods made with genetically engineered crops.

The judge upheld the Food and Drug Administration's 8-year-old policy that considers gene-altered crops to be essentially the same as those produced by conventional breeding methods.

But consumers shouldn't be afraid of biotech crops, Bryan said. The insecticide created through biotechnology is very specific about what it targets. It is non-toxic to birds, and human beings. Conversely, insecticides sprayed on crops are highly toxic.

"I've sat on hay wagons and ate kernels of biotech corn," Bryan said.

Genetically engineered crops, herbicide-resistant soybeans in particular, became popular with farmers in the late 1990s and are found in products throughout supermarkets.

The case of grocery store taco shells made from livestock grain illustrated a rare exception, Bryan said.

The corn in question, known as StarLink, is the only biotech crop not approved for food use. Aventis CropScience, which developed the corn variety, has agreed to reimburse the government for buying all of this year's crop to ensure that it does not get into the food supply again. The Environmental Protection Agency allows the corn to be used only for animal feed because of unresolved questions about whether it could cause allergic reactions in people.

Although Bryan was not directly involved, he thinks he has an idea about how the corn ended up in tacos.

"If they didn't clean out a combine or truck well enough, the different corns could get mixed together," he said.

Bryan, however, doubts biotech critics will go away. They express concerns about how the biotech plants might affect other plants and animals, and how the genetic engineering is carried out.

"You have some people out there afraid that the genes of rabbits are being injected into plants," Bryan said. "It'll never happen."